


but I can take it from here

by eudaimon



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers 2x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 19:45:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On election night, everything feels possible.  He knew that she didn't sign the goddamn book herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but I can take it from here

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one go. 2x09 was everything that my shipper heart wanted. And now I have a whole year to write about how their relationship develops. Don't I?

Yes, he bought the goddamned book. He knew that Sloan didn't sign it before anyone told him - he's not a fucking idiot.

But it's not about that. It's nothing to do with that.

*

_(He slept with Rebecca just once - even once was, he's sure, a pretty colossal conflict of interest but, hell, they were both lonely and it was late and, more than that, it was really fucking easy. They did it in her apartment, which was so fancy that Don was actually fucking afraid to touch anything. Except her, obviously - he did plenty of that. They fucked in the shower, which was roughly the size of Don's kitchen. Her skin was insanely soft and they talked the whole time - not dirty stuff, but laughing, telling jokes. She's got a great laugh and she laughed as she dug her nails into his shoulders as she came and her breasts slid against his skin as he lifted her to press her back against the tiled wall. He came so hard that he almost saw stars and then she fixed him a drink and then he walked home. It took a long time to get there, but he didn't mind - the night air felt great._

_So it was good, but she wasn't Sloan.  
So few women are)._

*

"You never call me."

He's reading the papers; he can't speed read like Mac does, so it takes him a little longer. His brain is muddled with headlines so, when he looks up, it takes him a moment to process what she just said. Which means he's looking up at her, so he also then has to process the fact that she's standing there, beautiful without a scrap of make-up, her hair pulled back, her sweater over her hands. 

(He thinks that he loves her best in casual clothes. Loves is a strong word. He gets fucked up by semantics. But there it is).

"Excuse me?"  
"You never call me," she says, sitting down in one of the spare chairs, folding her hands across her belly, which just serves to draw his attention away from her face and down and he might ( _might_ ) be blushing when he looks back up again. "Especially when I want you to."  
"You...want me to call?"  
"Always. I always want you to call." She worries the inside of her lip for a moment and Don actually has to distract himself by putting the caps back on his highlighters and taking a sip of his coffee, which he only then realises has gone stone fucking cold. 

"I...I'm sorry?"

"Not _call_ call. You don't have to _call_ me. I just...sometimes, I want to talk to you, you know? I like talking to you. I like...telling you things. Even if you never get the names right when you try to make fun of me afterwards."

(There have been nights, only a handful, where they've been in her apartment, on her couch, and she's leaned in against him, idly telling him about some imagined childhood trauma or another and he's been distracted by the smell of her hair or the warmth of her arm where it presses against his and he's lost track of the details. But he's a news man, first and foremost, so he's good at filling in as he goes).

"I could call," he says, managing to look at her. "I could definitely call."  
"So call," says Sloan, pushing up out of the chair in one fluid motion, already turning to go.

*

One night, he calls her from the street. It's raining, of course, and he picked up the wrong jacket back at the newsroom, so he's soaked to the skin and shivering and this? Is not exactly how he planned it.

But, fuck it. He's a newsman. He'll roll with punches. He'll make do.  
Nothing happens - they sit on her couch and talk. But he thinks about it.

*

November happens without him really noticing. It creeps in.

Election night and it has been the longest of the long days. There's an unpleasant electric-static charge in the air as they all wait for Reese to make up his mind. The air smells faintly of gun-powder. They're all primed, and ready to fire.

(And fuck Will, if he thinks any of them are going anywhere alone. Fuck him. Who died and gave him the monopoly on feeling fucking _righteous_?)

But still, Don loves this - this is where he comes to eat, him and Mac producing at the same time, in the same room, barely keeping it together between them, starting fires as soon as they put the others out. It's the only thing he's ever wanted to do since he first set foot in Columbia and he wasn't lying when he told Rebecca that this is what he wants to, the only thing he wants to do - with Mac and Will and Elliot and all the others. For Charlie. He wants to eat junk food, get laid occasionally (and, Jesus, he hopes Rebecca knows how fucking great she looks in that dress) but, mostly, he'd be content with a life where he did nothing but the news forever.

He's happy about two-thirds of the time, which makes him luckier than most other people he can think of.

It pains him, actually fucking _pains_ him that they might actually lose this. That it might all come to nothing because of Jerry Dantana makes him want to tear things apart (mostly, he wants to tear Jerry apart, but he'll settle for sueing the son of a bitch into the ground. Because fuck him. _Fuck_ him). Don might have come a long, long way since Newsnight 2.0 - haven't they all - but he's not entirely above taking joy in stupid, petty things. Because it's election night, nearly midnight, and they're about to call the election for the President and, just for once, it feels like they might be on the side of the angels. Just for a minute or two.

And...  
Oh, shit.

It's that moment when he realises that not only is Sloan in the control room, but she's signing a book with Sharpie and he doesn't have to see the cover to know that that? Is a copy of _Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic: The Economics of Post World War I Germany_. He's got one exactly like it on the bottom shelf in his bedroom.

Oh, _shit_.

He's sort of expecting the book to bounce off his head, so when it hits his chest instead, it almost knocks him back a step. He's in no way expecting the kiss, especially not _that_ kiss, her fingers on the back of his head, pushing into his hair, how hungry she seems, the press of the book between them. She tastes, faintly, of potato chips and he has a vivid sense memory of offering her the bag in his office. Lipstick. He's so used to her perfume that he barely notices it at all.

(It's not until later, when he's standing to one side and watching her on the set, that he feels this powerful, gut-punch need to know what she smells like. He smiles at her. She smiles back. He makes a mental note).

It seems to take forever for the bull-pen to empty, after Will breaks out the champagne and cigars. Mackenzie Morgan McHale McAvoy. The world's gone mad. And it's glorious.

It takes forever for everyone to go home.  
Everything happens very, very quickly after that).

*

"Jesus fucking Christ," he says, collapsing into his desk-chair, bringing her with him, into his lap. Outside his office door, the bull-pen is dark. Tomorrow, someone will deal with the abandoned bottles but, for now, they sit like sentinels as Don leans as far back in his chair as he can and looks Sloan in the eye. He smiles; he can't help it. God, it feels like he's dreaming. "Hi."

Sloan's fingers brush through his hair and she shifts her weight in his lap, leaning in closer.

"Hi."

The second kiss is slower than the first. They feel each other out. WIth Sloan in his lap, she has to lean down, he has to lean up. Her fingers are still in his hair and his hands are trembling as he touches her, the arch of her spine, the length of her thigh. He wants to pull her closer, wants her straddling him, one thigh on either side of his, wants her pressed against him, no room between them for anything. Not even light. His fingers ease under the hem of her dress, brushing against the bare skin of her inner thigh. They're friends - he's eaten ice-cream on her couch. But he's never, ever touched her like that.

It gives him cause to tremble.

His fingers start to curl in on themselves but Sloan presses her hand over his, keeping it where it is.

"Don't you dare stop," she says, shaking her head. "Just...just don't."  
What kind of man would he be if she had to say that to him twice?

They barely kiss, their lips just brushing, breath shivering into breath. Sloan's skirt is too tight to have much give in it, but they squirm and make do. In his lap, she shifts until he's got enough room, until he can twitch elastic to the side with his fingers, brush his thumb against her. He blushes, actually _blushes_ , when he finds her already soaking wet. There's a certain triumph in knowing that he did that - that she's wet for wanting him.

_What he's got? It sure as fuck can't be taught._

His dick is so hard that it's distracting, but he doesn't want to think about it yet because he just wants to focus on her. Don's never had to struggle to get laid but, right then, he has to struggle not to fumble. He's a thirty-five year old man, a long, long way from being a virgin but Sloan is the single most beautiful woman that he's ever been with and that? Is enough to give him pause. He keeps thinking about that conversation that he had with Mac, the one about _getting it done_.

God, please just let something about this edge into spectacular.

Sloan makes this noise when Don presses one finger inside her, his thumb against her clit. It's almost a sigh, her body rising to the touch, her lips ghosting against his. She smiles. His dick throbs.

"You're picturing me naked," she says, rocking rhythmically against him now, squirming as much as the fit of her skirt will let her. "You can admit it."

God. The way her voice has gone breathy could undone whole civilisations, he's sure of it.

"I admit it," he says, leaning up to kiss her again as he presses another finger into her. "I desperately, desperately want to see you naked. It is _literally_ all that I can think about."

"Later," she says, nodding, kissing him properly. "God, I promise."  
"I'm going to hold you to that."

She doesn't say anything else, just squirms her hand between them and presses it against his fly, squeezing his dick through his jeans. Don actually goes light-headed with relief. It's something. It's enough. 

He comes in his pants like a teenager, embarrassingly quickly, but Sloan takes a little longer, biting her lip and arching in his lap. Don doesn't know much about poetry but he's sure that some of it's there in the line of Sloan's spine, the way that her hair slips against her cheek, her teeth against her lip as she bites back a moan.

When they're both done, they lean together in Don's office chair, looking out into the bull-pen, the studio beyond.

"I fucking love this," he says. His arms are wrapped around her, one hand twisted together with hers against her thigh, and he means her and the newsroom and the news itself and everything that happened here tonight and everything that they've still got coming.

They'll figure it out as they go along.

*

Don loves his apartment. He always has. He loved it when he rented it and he loved it when he bought it from the landlord two years ago. It's home. He feels safe here. He feels...still.

"Huh."  
"Hmmm?" He's in the middle of unzipping her dress.  
"Nothing," says Sloan, turning in his arms, away from the framed poster on the wall. "Sunset Boulevard."

He'd kind of enjoyed himself, with the names.

She starts on the buttons of his shirt and, suddenly, Don's hit by a wave of nerves. He thinks that he liked it better when everyone thought he was an asshole. Being a good guy is harder - there's more to live up to.

"Just…" He frowns. "I'm not a football player, okay? I'm thirty-five and I play _tennis_. Just...remember that."  
"Really?" she says, and then she slips out of that dress, leaving nothing but black lace against smooth tan skin. She stands there for a moment, letting him look at her, letting him take in the flat slope of her belly, the rise of her breasts above lace. Her legs go on forever. She sits down on his sofa, letting her knees all apart, biting her lip and tilting her head. "Come on, Keefer. You're up."

So he does it. He mans up and he strips down to his underwear and there's this moment where she's just looking at him and he's looking back. He shifts his weight slightly and he's on the verge of caving but then she's standing up and closing the space between them, pressing against him, her bare belly against his.

"Listen to me," she says, looking him straight in the eye. "I don't care that you don't play football. I _definitely_ don't care that you're thirty-five. I have been _waiting_ for this, Don. Since…" She frowns. "Since I don't even remember when. And that's not even important. It's...really not. I want this. You. I want you."

He has literally nothing to say to that. He pulls her in and kisses her.

*

In bed, they take their time. She wraps her legs up around his waist and they move slowly together, kissing as they go. Don catches his weight on his forearms so that he can look down at her, the spill of her hair against his pillows. He's fantasised about this; it's pretty incredible to suddenly be in the middle of it. To suddenly be this close to her. He never wants to be anywhere other than here.

"You still haven't asked me, you know," she says, afterwards, pressed close against him, her cheek against his chest. "Out, I mean. You haven't asked me out."

He laughs, breathless, and nods.

"You want to get breakfast. I think I've got eggs?"  
"Maybe in an hour or so," she says, stifling a yawn against his bare skin. "Let's just stare here for a while. Let's just...be quiet."

No news, for a while. No drama. Just quiet. Just them.  
Just the throbbing of his head, steadily slowing to a resting pulse that somehow, incredibly, lines up exactly in time with hers.

(She smells, for the record, like soap and cucumber, green tea, apples. Good things. Growing things.

He thinks that there's a metaphor in that).


End file.
